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A glass of cold golden homemade beer (homebrew). Behind the glass is the bottle the beer came from.

Many of the supplies needed for making your own beer can be purchased at Canadian Homebrew Supplies. The following recipe makes approximately 60 bottles of beer and requires two hours to prepare with an additional 10 days for the fermenting process.

2 packs (1 oz each) of Willamette Hops

1 pack (1 lb) of caramel malt

3 grain bags about 6 by 8 inches in size

1 bag (4.25 oz) of Wyeast; the yeast needs to be activated ahead of time. Please read the package for instructions on how and when to activate.

1 large (enough to hold 30 or more liters of liquid) sterilized barrel with lid. This will be used to store the beer as it ferments for 10 days. TIP: Ensure the barrel and lid is completely sterilized. Using bleach to sterilize works well.

1 large (enough to hold 8 or more liters of liquid) stainless steel or aluminum pot

A package containing billions of yeast cells, about $10. This bag was activated three hours before.

A package of Briess Amber which essentially behaves as sugar, $12.99.

In a metal pot, bring 4.5L of water to a boil and then turn down the heat so the water is at a gentle simmer. Pour one pack of the hops’ pellets into a grain bag and close securely. Place the bag into the simmering water and steep for 20 minutes. The water will turn a moss green.

A bag of willamette hops steeping in 4.5L of gently simmering water.

In a coffee grinder, coarse chop the caramel malt. A blender or food processor should work too. Remove the hops’ grain bag, draining any excess liquid still lingering in the grain bag and in a new grain bag, pour in the crushed caramel malt, close securely and place in the liquid for 15 to 20 minutes. The water will turn a golden shiny brown. Before removing the bag, squeeze out any excess liquid.

Gradually, add both bags of the dry malt extract. Stir continuously while adding the malt extract and ensure there are no lumps in the liquid (which now has a special name, wort).

While the dry malt extract is being added, stir continuously until there are no lumps in the liquid.

Pour in the second bag of hops into a new grain bag and close securely. Place the bag into the wort and steep for 15 to 20 minutes and once the time has passed, remove the bag but before doing so squeeze out any excess liquid.

In the large barrel, add 18.5 L of cold tap water. Add to this the wort and then pour in the package of yeast. (Do NOT add the yeast directly to the wort. It will be too hot and will instantly kill all the yeast.) Give it a good stir, put the lid on and store for ten days in an out-of-the-way room temperature spot.

Wort containing yeast which will ferment to make beer. This will take ten days.

After ten days, the wort is now beer.

Once the ten days have passed, the beer can be siphoned and stored into individual beer bottles. This will take approximately 2 hours. To begin, sterilize all the beer bottles and caps. The easiest way to do this is to submerge the bottles and caps in a tub of water with a generous amount of bleach added. Soak for a few minutes and then thoroughly rinse the bottles and caps.

To each bottle, add precisely 3ml of corn sugar. Now the bottles are ready for their beer.

A bag of corn sugar (or dextrose) which was purchased at Home Hardware for $5.99. One bag lasts quite some time. Substituting with regular sugar is possible but not advised.

To remove the beer from the white barrel, use a tube to siphon out the beer. Once the beer is flowing in the tube, set up a system that will make distributing the beer easy and efficient for yourself and fix a clamp to the free end of the tube. The clamp makes distributing from bottle to bottle much easier. During this process, some of the beer will inevitably spill.

Just a note: do not siphon out to the very bottom. An unwanted sludge will have formed at the bottom which should not enter into the beer bottles.

Setup of siphoning system for distributing beer into individual bottles.

The clamp controls the flow of beer.

After the bottles have been filled, cap each bottle and ensure a complete seal has formed over the opening of each bottle.

A bottle capper purchased in the 70s.

The filled bottles will need to sit at room temperature for at least tens days during which time the beer will carbonate. Once the time has passed, chill the beers before serving.